“Firing too soon,” Morradin grunted with a note of satisfaction. “Nervous. All to the good. The Corvantine commander at Aben Mael made a similar error, wasting much of his ammunition before Racksmith’s stratagem began to play out.”
The ships maintained formation as they drew closer to the forts, the warships limiting their speed to enable the freighters to keep up. They began to return fire as soon as the forts came within range, firing smoke shells rather than explosives. Soon each of the island forts was wreathed in a grey blanket of smoke, but not before their gunners had managed to take a toll on the attackers. One of the warships, the Null and Void, took a direct hit to the bridge, which killed most of the Spoiled in the upper works. This would have been critical damage for a ship with a human crew but not the Null and Void, which continued to steam a true course towards its objective. Guided by the look-outs in the Malign Influence’s crow’s nest, the Spoiled belowdecks steered the tiller by hand, whilst the undaunted gunners on the upper decks kept up a steady barrage.
Two hundred yards east of the Null and Void, the Fatal Indulgence was less fortunate. An expertly aimed Corvantine salvo wrecked her forward gun and port paddle, sending her into an untidy spin. Sirus ordered the starboard paddle halted and set the crew rushing to conduct rapid repairs. But such a conspicuously maimed target soon drew fire from every fort in range and a concentrated barrage tore her apart minutes later.
“Couldn’t be helped,” Morradin sniffed. “Did her job anyway, the freighter’s almost there.”
Sirus felt the marshal’s anticipation swell as the freighter steamed through the smoking debris left by the demise of her escort, making straight for the fort beyond. Shells struck her repeatedly as she swept forward, laying waste to her upper deck and holing her hull in several places, but scoring only one hit below the water-line. Despite the sudden inrush of water, the freighter possessed enough momentum to bring her crashing into the island fort’s rocky shore-line. She settled as her lower decks flooded, shuddering like a great dying monster as the fort’s cannon fired into her at point-blank range.
“I see little point in any delay, do you?” Morradin said.
Sirus nodded and sent a mental command to the five Spoiled in the freighter’s hold, who immediately set about lighting the fuses connected to the massed barrels of powder. The arsenals at Feros, Melkorin and Sairvek had yielded an impressive tonnage of explosive but comparatively few cannon with which to fire it. Morradin’s greatly expanded version of the plan so famously used by Commodore Racksmith provided a fine opportunity to use this surplus. Fully four-fifths of their entire powder stocks had been crammed onto the freighters. The fuses were set for thirty seconds, giving the Spoiled allotted the task of lighting them an opportunity to escape. Even when dealing with deluded monsters such as these the human instinct against suicide could be a barrier to obedience so Sirus was careful to allow them the hope of survival, however illusory.
In the event not a single Spoiled escaped the freighter before it exploded, Sirus feeling their confused, oddly gleeful minds blink out as the ship disappeared in a massive ball of fire. The shock wave reached them before the sound, Catheline letting out an exultant laugh as she staggered in the gale of displaced air. The roar of the blast came next, loud enough to pain the ears sufficiently for Catheline’s laughter to transform into a painful wince.
The fire-ball ascended to at least two hundred feet, dissipating into a thick column of black smoke that towered over the island. Debris fell in a thick rain that made the surrounding water roil until the smoke started to clear and reveal the damage. The freighter had disintegrated completely and for a brief second Sirus concluded the fort had somehow survived the blast, its south-facing wall seeming to be mostly intact. Then he saw the rubble covering the west side of the island and registered the absence of the structure’s domed roof. Flames rose from within the blackened ruin and soon there came the crump of exploding powder as they reached the fort’s magazine.
“Satisfactory,” Morradin concluded, peering through his spy-glass at the carnage. “Though I believe Racksmith managed to destroy Aben Mael completely. Of course, he had only one to contend with.” He shifted his spy-glass to the right where a pair of ships were bearing down on another fort. “I do believe I am about to outdo him by a factor of five.”
“Twenty-five thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six Spoiled confirmed dead,” Veilmist reported with her customary precision. “Six thousand one hundred and thirty-two wounded, of whom approximately half are expected to survive.”
“Approximately?” Catheline asked her, one eyebrow arched in mock surprise.
“It’s impossible to provide an accurate figure for recovery rates . . .” Veilmist trailed off into puzzled silence as Catheline laughed and pressed a kiss to her scaled forehead.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” she said. “Approximately will do perfectly well.”
From the centre of the square came a familiar scream, rich in terror but mercifully brief. Sirus glanced over to see the juvenile Whites squabbling over the remains of a captured Blood-blessed, another Cadre agent who proved a stark contrast to the heroic woman at Sairvek. The portly fellow had been dragged from an attic hideaway during the post-conquest search and taken to the White for what had become a grim ritual. The administrative district of Subarisk was dominated by a broad plaza of fountains and statues commemorating various Imperial heroes, the largest of which was a recently completed marble rendition of Emperor Caranis himself. It lay in several pieces at the base of the tall column rising from the centre of the square, having been toppled by the White, which had chosen to perch its massive form in the emperor’s place.
The Blood Cadre agent begged and pleaded as he was dragged through the surrounding ranks of Spoiled and captives. When confronted with the White he collapsed, gibbering on the paving-slabs and soiling himself. Judging by the satisfaction leaking from the minds of recently converted captives Sirus concluded this man had been something of a terror in the city, both before and after the revolution. His grisly and frenzied demise was therefore greeted with much less horror and dismay than might otherwise have been expected.
Beyond the squabbling juvenile Whites a continual line of captives were being paraded in front of the Blue crystal. The conversion wouldn’t take long, just a moment or two and the terrified prisoner would fall into a dead faint and be carried away, their features already showing the deformities to come. The Blue crystal would occasionally flicker, its light becoming dim whereupon the White would lean down from its perch to bathe it in an intense stream of fire.
Energy, Sirus had concluded when first witnessing this spectacle back in Morsvale. It needs energy to work, like any machine.
“A stiff price to pay for victory, Marshal,” he heard Catheline say, turning back to see Morradin meeting her critical gaze with an expression that wasn’t exactly defiant, but neither was it contrite.
“Our casualties were only marginally greater than the estimate,” he replied. “And the capture rate means our losses will be made good within the day.”
Catheline turned a questioning glance to Veilmist, who nodded. “We currently have over eighty thousand captives,” the Island girl said. “Given the success of our sweeps in the outlying districts and surrounding country-side the army should exceed two hundred thousand within six days.”